


Starbright

by distractedKat



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Found Family, Gen, Imprisonment, Kidnapping, caleb is a star, have you ever seen or read the neil gaiman story stardust, like a literal one, not like a celebrity, nott is amazing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-04-21 15:18:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14287764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/distractedKat/pseuds/distractedKat
Summary: Stars fall in Exandria. Not often.But sometimes.Caleb doesn't care about Exandria until the day he's pulled down from the sky.





	Starbright

**Author's Note:**

> Huge, HUGE shoutout to [ widofjordwillwork ](https://widofjordwillwork.tumblr.com) for all her help with not just the German but the beta reading! She's got eyes like a HAWK. 
> 
> If anyone else is writing fic and needs some German help, she says to hit her up! She's super generous with her time and talents and really, really good at what she does.
> 
> Thank you, widofjordwillwork!! You're the _real_ star AHHSHAHSHHAHAHAH GET IT

Stars fall in Exandria. Not often.

But sometimes.

Mostly, stars fall when they're curious about the goings on of the mortals, when they want to see and feel and experience for themselves. When they're tired of just watching. Sometimes they fall accidentally. Stars can be knocked out of the heavens by passing phenomena, which is frightening but not usually much more than a temporary adventure. It's difficult but not impossible to get back up into the skies, if a star is very brave and very clever. Stars live a long time, even on Exandria; they always get back eventually.

But stars can be pulled down, too. Deliberately torn from their homes. Imprisoned. 

Caleb doesn't really care about Exandria. There are in his own world enough things to entertain him, stories to learn, magics unique to his people. He's not paying attention the day it happens.

He's one of the only stars not watching when the mortals cast their net.

It hooks into him and pulls, the worst pain he's ever felt, agony as he's torn from his home. The captors contain him, somehow, force him into a flesh prison, a body not his own, one he cannot shine through. He looks up, shaking, and there is a mortal there. An Exandrian.

"Aren't you beautiful," it says, towering above him, pleased with itself, and Caleb wishes for the first time he'd paid attention to the pitiful world of these crawling creatures. Then he might know what this thing is, what it wants with him, a weakness he might exploit to get free, get back home.

Something--something in the center of Caleb's chest  _aches._ It throbs like-- He doesn't know. It hurts and he hates it and  _oh_  does he have a  _heart--?_ Why does a star need a heart, what have they--

"Yes," the creature says, crouching to tangle a hand in Caleb's hair--and he can see it out of the corner of these mortal eyes, can see red, red as he'd been before, red as his fire, red as the shining of his true self--and pull hard. There's more pain until Caleb tilts his head back. "Yes, I think this will do nicely. Do you know how long I've waited," he says, presumably to Caleb now, "for a star of my own?"

"I am not anyone's," Caleb says in Celestial, the only language he ever bothered to learn to speak. If only he'd been a better scholar. If only he'd been more interested in learning about this useless, dying world. If only--

His captor kicks him to the floor, pressing the sole of its shoe hard against Caleb's throat. The heart in his chest that shouldn't be there thunders. The breath in his lungs he shouldn't need burns. "You're mine now," the creature says with a dark smile. "I'll not have my things speaking if I can't understand them. You'll use Zemnian or nothing at all."

Zemnian. Is that what this guttural language is? Caleb doesn't know how to say yes, not in any of the mortal languages. 

His lungs  _scream._

He nods.

The boot lifts. The creature steps away. "Good," it says, hands folded behind its back. "Welcome to the household, my star. We will be together a long time. You might as well get settled."

The creature does not tell Caleb its name.

Other creatures come, following some order Caleb can't see. They cover him with water, scrub hard cloths against his skin until he thinks this prison body will bleed, wash the red of his hair, drag him out of the wet room and toss him into a small, dark space. They throw more cloths at him, forcing them over his head, up his limbs, until he's wearing the same trappings they are.

No.

These are finer, closer to what his captor wears. He thinks--he thinks he is meant to be a treasure. Part of a hoard, like a dragon might keep. An interesting trinket. He thinks--

Stars do not die.

But flesh bodies do.

Caleb thinks he can feel this prison dying all around him.

Water falls from the eyes of his mortal form. He hasn't studied Exandria, not as he should have. He doesn't know what it means. His chest aches. 

They let him wander this building, let him walk unsupervised across the grounds, because they know he can't escape. Where would he go? He's never even heard of a star being trapped as he is. If he kills the body, will he be free, or will he still be bound to it? He wants to risk it but he's afraid, terrified of death as no star has ever been.

Caleb learns Zemnian. He learns Common. He learns to read in both. He finds the room where these mortal creatures keep their tomes--a library--and starts at one end. He has a lot of time, apparently.

His captor likes to look at him, like a sculpture in a jar, but it--he--doesn't care to do much else. The more Caleb reads, the more he realizes how lucky that is. The captor could want worse things from him than just to look.

Years pass. Caleb thinks his mortal shell should age, but it doesn't. Not like the guards and servants, the chefs and gardeners, the supplicants and gawkers. They gray and stoop and eventually stop coming altogether. They bring curious children with them who grow tall and solemn. It is an honor, they say, down through the generations, an honor to preserve the master's collection.

Now that Caleb knows the names for things, he thinks the captor is an elf. Or else something worse in an elf-shaped body. He, also, never ages. He takes lovers when someone particularly lovely catches his eye, but never holds onto them. He has no offspring. He is slow and patient in the way of immortals, the way of stars.

In different circumstances, Caleb would have liked to know more about the captor. But Caleb is locked in a flesh prison and this being is the reason why. He is too angry, too bitter, to spend any time he doesn't have to on his warden.

Nothing changes. Not for a long, long time.

And then, one day.

A goblin appears.

 

Later, Caleb will describe their meeting by saying "I was in prison and Nott saved me."

Nott repeats that story, even though she never quite believes it. She's seen a lot of prisons, a lot of jails, but nothing like where she found Caleb.

She broke into the mansion to look for shiny things. It looked like a castle from a storybook, and she thought it must contain so many wondrous items. Surely no one would miss just  _one._

Later, much later than now, Jester will ask Nott, "What's your favorite thing you've ever stolen?"

They aren't friends yet, not really. So what Nott says is, "I stole a platinum flask once." She phrases it that way so she's not quite lying.

Nott's favorite thing she ever stole is Caleb.

She found him in a library, late at night, long after most everyone should have been asleep. He's sitting in the window and he doesn't shine. She'll think he should have, looking back. She'll think, "He would have been happier if he could have been shining."

But in the moment, what she thinks is, " _Shit."_

She assumes she's been caught. She assumes Caleb, who looks human, who is wearing clothing like a fine prince or king, will scream, call for the guard, have her captured or killed.

She does  _not_ expect him to say, "Interesting. How did you get in here?"

"The security isn't very good," she replies without really thinking about it. "Uh. I mean, it's wonderful. It's--really secure?" She's cringing by the end.

Lying isn't her specialty, which is especially terrible considering how often she's caught in situations where a good lie would be really useful.

Instead of being angry, he huffs a breath that might almost have been a laugh. "What are you looking for?" he asks, standing up from the window seat. "I will help you find it."

"...Won't you get in trouble if it goes missing?"

He shrugs, easy and graceful under layers of silk. "I hate this place," he says, casually pulling beautiful trinkets off the shelves of the library. "This is not my home, it is a prison. I would see it burn, and gladly, if I could."

Nott stuffs everything he hands her into her satchel without even glancing at the objects. "Then why don't you just leave?" she asks. "You don't have chains. There aren't even any guards. You can just  _leave,_ can't you?"

For a long moment after that, he looks down at her. Eventually he crouches so they're on about the same level and just. Stares. Into her eyes. He can't have missed that she's a goblin so she doesn't know why he's--

Then she sees it.

He doesn't glow. But his eyes are the blue of hottest fire. Unnaturally bright. Whatever this person is, it isn't anything as simple as human.

"They don't need chains or shackles to keep me here," he says at last, blinking to release Nott from his... It's not a spell or a thrall or charm or anything like that. It's just...something that he  _is._  "This whole body is a prison. And I cannot escape, even if I leave."

"Then why stay?" He blinks at her again, so she shrugs to cover her nerves. "If you're trapped in your body either way, and there's no way to break out of it here, why not leave? Maybe there's some way to break out, you know." She gestures back the way she came. "Out there."

"I am unfamiliar with the..." He seems to struggle for a strong enough word then settles on, "With the  _out there._  I believe there is a good chance of me being taken advantage of. Worse there than here."

"Are you afraid?" she asks.

Half his mouth tries to smile. "I am," he says. Nott likes his voice. It's low, and soft, and manages to make even the harsh accent of Zemnia kind of warm. 

She likes that he's honest. So many of the big people in the world pretend to be one thing or another and then ruin a lot of things when the truth comes out. He's sad, and desperate, and the part of her that will always be goblin likes that too. If he's dependent on her, the odds of him betraying her are lower.

"I'm Nott," she says. "I don't know how to get you out of that prison, but I know what it's like to be something you'd...rather not."

He looks confused. "Do you not like being a goblin?"

"I don't mind it so much," she admits, trying not to wring her hands, trying not to give away her nerves. "But other people... They-- Well." She flashes her teeth in a smile. "They have some objections. And they make their objections known with rocks, on occasion."

For another long moment, he's quiet, sitting back on his heels, watching her. "Do you know what I am?" he asks.

"I don't," she says. "But I know it's not what you look like. You're not a human." She shrugs. "I don't know what that leaves. There's not a lot of schooling options, for a little goblin girl."

"I am a star," he says. "This person pulled me down from the sky, bound me in these bones, in this flesh. I think I could find a way to break the spell, if I could search further. But I do not know how to be in the world."

"I know how to be in the world," Nott says.

He nods. "If you will help me be free of this, I will have a wish I can grant you. It can be anything."

Nott's heart races. "Anything?" she breathes.

"Ja," he says. "This is not a difficult plane to manipulate, once I'm myself again. I have never granted a wish, but that is how the stories go, isn't it? You can wish upon a fallen star."

"Falling, I thought," she says.

He finally manages a smile. "A mistranslation."

"What's your name?"

Later, he'll confess that he hasn't told anyone else in Exandria. That they all just call him der Stern--the star. What he says when she asks is, "Caleb."

"Alright, Caleb." She holds out her hand for a shake. He stares at it, a confused crease between his eyebrows. "Give me your hand," she prompts. When he holds it out obediently, she shakes it.  "That means we've made a deal that we both agree to. There's no backing out, or something terrible will happen. We've promised to help each other, okay?"

"Ja," he says, shaking her hand a few more times than necessary. "I understand. Help me find the knowledge I seek, I will grant you a wish."

A wish. She could be anything, whatever she most wanted in all of Exandria. If he could be freed, so could she. She'll take care of Caleb, keep him safe, so one day he can save her in return.

"Let's go," she says, and leads the way out.

Caleb is the best thing she ever stole. A star of her own, a secret treasure. The promise for a bright future. She finds rags for him, rubs dirt into his face and hair, winds bandages around his hands so no one will notice how soft they are. Anyone looking deep enough will see that he's special, so she makes them both dirty, covers them both with strong scents most other races abhor. Nobody guesses what he is. Nobody suspects a thing.

And then they go to the circus.

 

As it turns out, the captor was a dragon.

The dragon finds them.

It takes him a few years.

By the time he tracks Caleb down, the Mighty Nein are already beginning to make a small (but not  _too_ small) name for themselves as creature-killers and problem-solvers. Caleb had talked Nott into joining this group in the first place for several reasons. First and foremost, so they are safer. There is strength in numbers, as they learn. And it doesn't hurt that in the beginning, the rest of the team would have made excellent scapegoats. They are too attached, now, for that plan to work, but it had been a good one at the time.

Another strong reason Caleb had them join was to give Nott more friends. If Caleb were to be free of this prison, she would be alone again. Nott was too good, too kind, too clever to be on her own. She needed others. The Nein could be that for here, once he was gone. She would be...whatever she wanted. And also be with them. With...family, of a sort. Caleb didn't know--couldn't remember--if he could miss people as a star. He hadn't had a reason to know, back then.

Now he was sure he would find out, eventually.

The dragon found them on the road. At sunset, as they are engaged in setting up for the night. The most dramatic time of day for a confrontation with an enormous beast. He appears at the edge of their camp, casting a dark shadow over them, wearing his elven form and dressed in black pants and boots, all covered with a long red coat. "Mein Sternchen," he says in the impossibly deep, rumbling voice that has always been too big for his body. "At last I have found you. I am amused that you would run, so I will not kill you for it. This has been a merry chase; you disguised yourself well. But it is over." He holds out his hand. "It is time to return, now. There is no purpose to treasure left on its own. You will come with me, Sternchen. Or you and all of this will burn."

"Caleb's not treasure," Nott shrills, scrambling over Caleb where they sit together building the fire to put her body between them and the captor. "I think-- I think you have the wrong person!"

The captor chuckles. His hand doesn't lower.

Caleb still doesn't know his name. The Mighty Nein are starting to be powerful, but nothing...nothing like enough to beat a dragon. Caleb's shaking, though only Nott can feel it. Only Nott knows enough to guess who this must be. They've been so careful not to let his secret slip.

All for naught.

"Who's this asshole?" Beau asks, dropping the fish she'd been cleaning to stand and ready her staff. "Sorry, man, nobody's going anywhere."

"What is  _starch hen_?" Jester asks. A spectral lollipop appears above her head and the tent she was building. "Why would you starch a  _hen?_  You shouldn't do that to chickens, that's real bad for the bird!"

The captor doesn't move. Doesn't take his eyes from Caleb.

Caleb knows how this confrontation must end. He squeezes Nott in a fierce hug, taking just a moment to bury his face in the familiar, comforting scent of her hair. He stands and steps forward.

Molly and Fjord step forward too. They close rank in front of Caleb, blocking him from view. It is noble.

And it is useless.

"There is no fighting this," Caleb tells them, low and warm and grateful and resigned. "I must go, now. He will kill all of you."

Yasha comes up behind him, puts her hand on his shoulder. Speaks to him in Celestial. Calls him Caleb.

Calls him  _star._

"You don't have to go if you don't want to," she says in her--in  _his--_ mother tongue.

Caleb twists around to look at her. "You knew?" he replies in Celestial. "How long? Since the beginning?"

"I knew you were something," she agrees in the same language, "but I didn't know what until the first time you spoke with me." A smile bows her mouth. "Stars have a distinctive accent, you know."

"I did not," he says.

"I grow weary of this," the captor says. "Come with me by choice or by force, Sternchen. But you will come with me either way."

"Don't go if you don't want to," Yasha repeats, in Common this time.

"I fear I must," Caleb says to her, to all of them, drinking in the sight of this small group of mortals who had almost been his family. He steps back to get them all in his view, then bows. Not as a human or a Zemnian, but as a star, a twist of hand particular to his people. "Thank you," he says. "For everything."

"Hey," Beau says, accusation layered over her fear, "what the fuck, man? This guy shows up and you don't even fight? You're just gonna  _give up?"_

"I am," Caleb says. He digs in his pockets for his valuable items, crouching to give them to Nott.

"I found you once," she says, so softly Caleb almost doesn't hear her.

He smiles and cups her cheek in his hand. "It will not be so easy a theft if you try again. I would caution against it. This has been..." He takes a shivering breath. "It has been more than I could have known to dream of. I am...I am grateful to you. And-- If ever I can," he murmurs, "I will find you. I will grant the wish. You have more than earned it."

"The wish?" Jester echoes. Curiosity brightens her eyes, not quite realization but something close.

"This is all getting a bit dramatic," Molly says to the captor, flourishing his coat while he spreads his arms as though he could solve the problem with a big enough hug. "Can't we sit and talk this out? Come, friend, share a meal with us."

"I don't pretend to know the particulars of what all's goin' on," Fjord adds, shoulder brushing up against Molly's as they form a solid line of defensive bullshit. "Although I would like to. Molly's made a good suggestion; let's try to find some common ground. Perhaps are goals are as dissimilar as they seem. We can find a middle ground, can't we?"

Caleb shuts his eyes. His flesh heart swells and aches. "Auf Wiedersehen," he says, pressing his forehead to Nott's.

Behind him, the captor starts to laugh. The sound moves over the earth like a fog. 

"Ooh that's not good," Jester says. 

Caleb stands and turns and sets eyes on the captor. He's swelling like a nightmare creature, bursting through the clothes he wears, the flesh he wears, heaving and boiling in his skin until he stands above them as himself: a red dragon. He is--he is  _huge,_ scales gleaming in the fading light, wings towering over their camp like the certainty of death.

"I think we could take him," Beau says as soon as the dragon has finished shifting.

Molly and Fjord both turn to look at her. Their expressions aren't identical, but there's a common theme of astonished disbelief.

Caleb walks through the group. "I will come with you," he says. "I will not run again."

"We could totally take him!" Beau protests. "He's just one guy, there's seven of us!"

"Beau," Fjord begins reasonably. 

Caleb ignores them. 

"This is really dumb," Jester says. Her spectral lollipop starts to inch closer to the dragon.

"It isn't fair," Nott adds, sounding like...like she's crying.

Caleb steels his heart. This is for  _her,_ for all of them, so they don't end their lives in the maw of a creature they have no business being anywhere near. "I am ready," he says to the dragon.

"No!" Beau shouts. "You can't just  _give up!"_

"Very well," the captor says in Zemnian. "There is just one thing left."

Fear grips Caleb's heart, tightens his throat. "There's nothing," he says. "Take me back to the hoard."

The dragon laughs, pushing Caleb aside. Knocking him out of the way. "None alive will know of you," he says. "None but I." Fire builds in his mouth, down into his gullet. He will turn them to ash. 

"Wait!" Caleb cries, scrambling to his feet as the rest of the Nein ready themselves for battle. "Stop,  _no,_ you don't have to do this, I will come with you! They don't even know where your lair is, what harm could they do?"

"The goblin knows," his captor says. "Even if she didn't, they have looked upon you without my permission. I shall wipe them from existence."

By the time the dragon breathes its first fire, Caleb has...he has done a very stupid thing.

When he was a star-- Well, he is still a star. But before he was pulled from his home, Caleb was quite a self-centered creature. He had no need to be otherwise. Since Nott found him, though, he has learned better. He has learned from her, from the others. He understands how precious, how rare those living on this world are, now. He knows why he used to be dismissive towards them, knows also that he was  _wrong._

They are special, these brief mortal creatures. They are wild and vivacious and more treasure than a thing like him has ever been.

After the dragon first took him, Caleb tried to shine. It hurt. Worse than anything before or since. It was his first taste of physical pain, and nothing since has matched it. He swore, then, not to shine until he'd found a way out of this prison

Starlight isn't simple. It isn't any one thing, not just light, not just celestial power, not just a part of him. It is all manner of things, all tangled into one. It is blood and bone, body and breath. It is all a star is, all radiating outward.

Caleb sees death coming for his little family and he.

Does a  _very_ stupid thing.

He thinks of Nott, who is his salvation. Molly, who is a liar but honest about it. Fjord, who is a liar but kind. Jester, who is full of joy, Beau, who is full of pride. Yasha, who knew him but kept his secret. They fill his mind, his heart, his very self, as he reaches deep down inside him where the star that he once was is imprisoned and he  _pulls._  He pulls and pushes and tears, rips himself asunder under the heat of dragon fire until he is shining like a nova until he is gone, until he is nothing 

but

_light_

 

Molly's always known there was  _something_ about Caleb. He is a ball of contradiction at the best of times. Cowardly and brave, shy and bold, clever and naive. There's always been a kind of  _newness_ to Caleb, who speaks at least three languages but either doesn't know or won't conform to social conventions. Caleb's a nut Molly's been wanting to crack practically since they first met.

There are things Molly doesn't know. He might have at one time; now, anything older than the carnival is gone. 

The carnival taught him things, too. New things that he remembers. Stories he likes to twist and rearrange and tell others.

Most importantly, for right now, they taught him about stars. Stars fall in Exandria, they told him. Not often.

But sometimes.

If you catch a fallen star, you can have a wish. If you help a star back into the heavens, anything you want can be yours.

Molly had assumed they were just more tall tales.

Now Caleb stands in a cone of fire spouted by a dragon come to collect him back into its hoard, and Molly thinks maybe the tales were less tall than true.

Caleb is a beacon of light, shining so bright Molly can hardly look at him. The dragon fire curls around him, around the tower of blue and red that used to be their wizard. The Nein could not have taken on a dragon and lived, no matter what Beau thinks.

But faced with the shining of a star, the dragon breaks off its attack. It steps back, head cocked. "A sacrifice," it says, rumbling like an earthquake. "You've figured it out."

The light curls up into a ball, colors intermixed and pulsing, illuminating their camp like it's midday. Sound comes from the light in waves that fade in and out like music.

Yasha laughs, then seems surprised by it. "It's funnier in Celestial," she tells the others when they turn to her.

"Boo," says the dragon, sitting on its haunches. "The other stars will have learned to avoid my trap by now. I suppose those decades we had together will have to be enough." He shrinks back down to the elf they first saw, eyes still bright with fire, mouth curved in a grin more fitting for a dragon. "At least until the next star falls."

"I will not allow it," the light that was Caleb says in Common, still fading at either end, still with his Zemnian accent. "We know you, now."

"We'll see," the dragon says.

In a blink, it's gone.

The star in their midst shudders and darts, flitting in all the empty space between them. At last, it floats before Nott, stretching out to take a slim, mostly human shape. "Your wish," it says. Its head is tilted down, as though it's looking at Nott.

As though  _he_ is looking at Nott. This--this is still Caleb, somehow.

Tears fill Nott's eyes. "Caleb," she says, voice breaking.

The star reaches a brilliant white hand to nearly--but not quite--touch her cheek. "You are owed a wish," he says. "We agreed. What would you have me do? I can turn you into anything, now."

"And then you'll go home," she says hoarsely, tears spilling down her cheeks. "Then you'll leave me. Leave us."

Fear seizes Molly's heart. His gaze snaps to Yasha's. She looks back, solemn and sad. It's true.

Once Nott makes her wish, Caleb will go.

Molly wants to tell her no, demand that she put off her wish as long as she can. Then he thinks...

The dragon said  _decades._ How long has Caleb been trapped here against his will? Isn't it right, that he should go? He'd been willing to die in dragon fire for them, and it broke his binding.

Isn't setting him free the least they can do in return?

"Your wish," Caleb prompts again.

"I know I said," Nott begins, eyes turned toward her feet and the floor, "back when I found you, that I would wish to be...something else. Anything else. But now, I--" She wrings her hands and looks up at Caleb. His light glows in her eyes. "I'm going to say it carefully, Caleb, so you know. So you can tell you have a choice."

"Nott," Jester whispers, hands pressed against her mouth, eyes huge and luminous with tears. "Oh, Nott, will you really--"

"I wish," Nott says to him, loud and firm, without doubt or fear, "for you to stay with me, if you want to. For as long as you want to. I wish for that choice to be yours."

Molly's heart breaks and soars.

Caleb's celestial feet touch the ground. He shimmers back into what looks like a body, familiar shock of red hair and fair skin, still shining but the way fireflies or lamps do, soft and white. Instead of his rags, he's clothed in silver that gleams like silk, a long loose shirt and trailing pants. He looks--

He looks like star would, if a star were to walk around. Molly wants to explore him, chart every inch of him like constellations, discover the differences between a star and a man.

As though sensing Molly's thoughts, Caleb looks up. His eyes are the bright blue of fire, of the sky in the middle of summer. The more Molly looks the deeper he can see, until he feels the universe stirring behind Caleb's crooked smile.

No about of dirt or smelly coats is going to be enough to hide him.

"It will be a struggle, to keep me around as I am," Caleb says, turning back to Nott. This is still her wish. "There are those who would hunt a star to worse ends than the dragon's."

"If you eat the heart of a star," Yasha explains to all of them, eyes on Caleb, "you gain its life and magic." She tips her head toward him. "Especially a star happy enough to shine."

Caleb's halo of light pulses briefly as he grins at her. "I will be safe as I can be, in the company of an aasimar, I think."

"I will stay with you as long as you stay on this plane," Yasha promises.

"I would not keep you from your Stormlord," Caleb protests.

"I'm nothing special like a star or an aasimar," Molly says, stepping toward Caleb, who watches him with speculation and a tilted head. "I can promise not to leave you undefended though."

"You look different," Caleb says, bringing Molly up short. He doesn't leave Nott, but he casts his eyes around the group before drawing a shuddering breath. "You all-- It is...good," he decides finally, "to see you as you are."

"What?" Beau says.

"Ooo, Caleb!" Jester dances forward, gripping her skirt in both hands for maximum twirl when she spins in front of him. "Do I look  _amazing?_  Am I even prettier now? You should tell me, Caleb! Tell me what I look like to a star."

"I'd, uh." Fjord scratches his jaw. "That's somethin' I'd like to know too."

Caleb focuses on Fjord. He blinks, then hides a laugh in Nott's hair.

"Hey," Fjord protests.

"It's okay, man," Beau says, resting a hand on his arm. "I think Caleb's just gonna be weird, now. Well. Weirder." She makes a so-so motion with one hand. "He was already kind of a mess. Now it'll just be a less smelly, more glowy, attracting-death mess." She holds her fist out for a bump. "Imagine all the  _fights_ we're gonna get in, it's gonna be sweet."

Fjord signs and taps his fist to hers.

"What do you wish, Schatz?" Caleb murmurs to Nott, cupping her face in his hands.

"Stay with me," Nott says. Nott wishes. Nott grips Caleb's wrists and  _prays._ "Stay with  _us._  As long as it's what you want, too, and not a day longer."

"I will," Caleb says. He glows brighter for a moment, a crescendo of light until Molly has to look away, blinking spots from his vision. 

When he can see again, Nott and Caleb look unchanged. Except--

Nott has a beauty mark, now. A starburst of lighter skin just beneath the corner of her right eye. Caleb has one too, matching hers exactly. They're bound, now, for as long as they want to be.

For as long as they wish it.

It's the beginning, Molly thinks, of a great story.

**Author's Note:**

> Stardust is on Netflix, give it a watch if you wanna!
> 
> Also I'm sorry I did this instead of Wild Song. WILD SONG IS COMING TOO I PROMISE.
> 
> *runs away*
> 
> *runs back* I have a tumblr, [ come visit me ](https://distractedkat.tumblr.com)
> 
> *flees*


End file.
